:lol: you must be from goonersworld.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh_Gooner
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:lol: you must be from goonersworld.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh_Gooner
:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
Don't really fancy that place, tbh.
Will visit every now and then and peruse a bit. That's about it.
You should try Le-grove.co.uk they hate Wenger's guts, mostly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Josh_Gooner
Do we want Wenger to stay though
Maybe need to start looking at his future replacement now so can look to freshen up the club with new ideas?
Best news this summer.
You've changed your tune. Seen many go from loving Wenger to hating Wenger but havent seen many jump to the opposite extremes.
*sigh*.Quote:
Originally Posted by tjmill
We definitely need to do something to get out of this Groundhog Day of scraping into the top 4 every year and being far too content to do that and nothing more. Whether that something is to get rid of Wenger or change our transfer policy or both...
If Wenger refuses to invest where he needs to in order to make us competitive then he should go. No more excuses. The money is there. Spend it.
Some have said they don't trust him to spend money in the right way anyway. There's something in that. But you don't sell your best player every year and still keep us top 4 without having some ability, we could do a lot worse than Wenger, so if he spends money this summer then...well...oh, I don't know any more!
Gazidis has set it all up now. He has defended Wenger by saying some of his dud signings were because 'he was operating under what the club could afford'. But Gazidis is also sick of the criticism that he is getting so he's distancing himself from the firing line.
There is a lot of talk - much, much more than usual - about how he is able to give Wenger more money now. He says we can afford elite players like Rooney. There is the puma sponsorship deals. The massive TV revenues from BT. We are getting rid of our overpaid garbage like the bendtners and Arshavin. There's not much ambiguity any more. We're set up for the big summer where we push on and strengthen in a big way.
I don't think Wenger will bring in 3 £25m players or anything, but I do think he'll smash the club record on an elite player and then get 2 or so other good £10-15m players. And that's good enough to kick on IMO.
Gotta be the Higgs boson. Nothing else will do.
:gp:
The attention is firmly on Wenger this summer. There is no ambiguity about our finances and Gazidis is aware of the criticism of him and Stan. I never quite got why they get so much attention becaus they're new to this set up. That Arseblog article you posted has made a good point about the way fans avoid openly criticising Wenger by directing everything towards Ivan and Stan. Wenger has always maintained that this club is held back because of our resources and done so without criticising the clubs policy. That's put the Board under pressure from the fans and now they've delivered a clear message about our state and the focus now swings back to good coaching and good football.Quote:
Originally Posted by Syn
Yeah. There's no hiding place for Wenger now. I think most of us recognise that he's got ability, we'd have been in mid-table long ago if he didn't, but this constant asset stripping and perennial targeting of scraping into the top 4 at the expense of everything else as tested the patience of his most loyal apologist. It's clear there's money now which can make us challenge. I don't expect us to sweep all aside next year but I expect us to be doing what we need to in order to push on and start seriously challenging.
His hiding place was gone 2 seasons back! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
He should just resign in February if we are out of all competitions this season as well.
There is a difference though, FY. New commercial deals are in place, we're getting rid of some dead wood. There is a far clearer message that we've got serious money to spend. There'a always been mutterings about 'war chests' but not like this.
You seem to massively underestimate how hard it is to keep a team in the top 4, if Wenger was as incompetent as you make out there's no way he'd have done it again. But it shouldn't be all we're aiming to achieve - I don't think it is actually but Wenger and the board seem to make it our top priority. We need to be far more serious about challenging.
Look at whats happened to Liverpool. There are far worse scenarios than finishing in the top four every year, even if we haven't challenged the top teams. It has been massively important to stay in the champions league ever since we switched over to the Emirates stadium.
Now that we've got a bit more revenue coming in I hope we can push on. We've weathered the storm and achieved our first priority these last few years (in terms of achieving the minimum of a top four finish), now lets bring some silverware back to the club.
Of course, so long as you get yourself sorted off the pitch as far as commercially (and the revenue from a big stadium... provided the attendances don't plummet... further) doesn't mean you can't rebuild.
We are slowly rebuilding, with lower revenue [thanks to our much smaller stadium, I think we're still ahead commercially for now at least] that you would have at first. Though I do believe an announcement on our stadium is due shortly, but we still have to go through it. And pay for it.
It might take something drastic for Wenger to leave, but it would obviously depend on not appointing a fucking Hodgson in his place.
Haven't they all been saying that we have had money for years?
Each season they come out spouting the normal rubbish about having a 70mil war chest, the media go crazy linking us with everyone, Wenger does the usual only super super quality nonsense, the summer ends, we sign no one really of note, the season starts and we are where we were. SSDS.
The only difference this year is that we don't really have anyone left to sell. Ergo we probably won't buy anyone
Don't mean to be overly negative but talk is cheap. And that is all we are currently getting. Still.
Not exactly. They've said they'd back the manager, but the accounts don't really support it. We've HAD to sell players just to turn a profit. There's a LOT more money coming in now, so there's every reason to believe things could be different.Quote:
Originally Posted by -Xs-
You'd have to be some sort of Sun reader not to see it.
Pretty much. We've had money plus the money we got from selling the ****s, nasri, ade etc and Wenger failed to spend it.Quote:
Originally Posted by -Xs-
See nothing different this summer
If this summer goes the way of the others I still think you'll get people coming up with some sort of excuse for Wenger and/or the board.
The board admitted in last few weeks wenger has been operating on a tight budget with limited funds. End of discussion really. He hasn't had the money
And they're saying he has it now, so let's he what he does or doesn't do with it.
Gazidis and the Board have well and truly left him out on a limb here, as he'll have no excuse for failure come next February by which time we're normally out of all competitions.
'This summer, Arsenal are talking themselves up as approaching Super Club status with the financial muscle now available to them. There still some who, out of fierce loyalty and, I think, confirmation bias, have chosen to interpret Gazidis’ bullish proclamations as proof that the board have been hamstringing Wenger all along and are only making money available to him now. Personally, I don’t think that’s true. I think there’s a distinction to be made between “we have a bit more money now” and “we didn’t have any before.”
The manager has made some mistakes with that money and had some successes with it too. I see little evidence that the board have been holding back on what’s available to him. Leaving aside the deals we have done in the last few years, we have bid big for players we’ve not subsequently acquired such as Mata, Goetze, Reina and even Felipe Melo some five years ago. I think the truth is that, if Wenger doesn’t get exactly who he wants then he puts his wallet away.'
http://arseblog.com/2013/06/ivans-era/
spot on again. anyone using the 'we havent had money line' is clearly an undercover charlie.
Charlie. :lol:
Heard it was a head shot right between the eyes. He didn't suffer.
:rose:
:gp:Quote:
Originally Posted by She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
We haven't spent wisely over the past two seasons.
It's been a lot longer than that. Ever since le-Prof was given the keys to the kingdom to do as he likes. Such as signing Squillacci and paying Bendtner 50k pwQuote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
I agree put the past two seasons really highly the problem because we've been more active. 13 players bought, over £100m spent and not one world class talent amongst them. Only Merts and Cazorla have stamped them selves into the first team 'must start' braket. That's just awful.
i think thats harsh. i actually think he's spent much better over the past 2 seasons when he hasnt pissed around with kids but thats probably because of my deep-rooted hatred for project youth, which i believe was fundamentally flawed from the start. but i suppose if you take the spent money:league success ratio then over the past 2 years it's worse than any purely because of the voluminous amount we've spent compared to the past 8. wenger finally had enough of project youth so upped the spending. but if you look at the quality of players they've been much better.
podolski - first season 16 goals. doesnt seem to fit into the system but lets at least give him a second season? you dont bang in goals left right and centre for germany without being a little bit good.
giroud - first season 17 goals. for all the piss taking i make of him its not his fault he's number 1 when clearly he would be a much better no2, when our plan A is not working.
cazorla - player of the season.
mertesacker - solid defensive partnership with kos.
monreal - decent back up. needs to bulk up.
arteta - quality first season. not his fault he was playing in the wrong position last year.
cafu - pretty bad first season. but excellent since.
if we keep spending like we did last summer we'll see improvements. it was a very good summer but selling RVC was 1 step forward and 4 back. now we have more money we need to up the spending into the top bracket to get the world class players in to supplement the current lot. there's still underlying issues that need to be addressed though. why it took wenger 6 months to realise he needs to train the defence is one, for instance.
Where's all this Cafu stuff from?
Not a chance! We played better during the project youth years and the kids playing in reserves could be trusted to play cup games and dispatch of Prem league teams with ease. We can't even trust the first team to do that now and forget trusting our bench to win cup games! If we spent anywhere near as much as we did then now, we'd have won something without a doubt. It was too far and between for £10m plus first team signings. Ade, Eduardo, Sagna, Rosicky, Vermaelen, Hleb, Nasri, Arshavin....all quality but came in drips and drabs.
you've completely missed the point. you said the last 2 transfer windows have been poor. my argument was that after a few years of spending on dirt last years transfer window was better because we spent on quality players.
nothing to do with how we play football, how our reserves do in the carling cup or whether we can trust our bench. purely on individual transfers and returns: cazorla, podolski and giroud are good signings. you cant argue with that. if we had signed those type of players in project youth we would have won something.
I get what your saying but a few seasons back we were hardly spending at all but when we did we spent on real quality like the players I mentioned. That was the main problem with signings. Too little being spent on experience. Pod and Giroud are step down from players like Ade, Eduardo, Rosicky and Nasri.Quote:
Originally Posted by She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
I'd say we wasted money on wages but not on player signings for the first team in those years. If Wenger bought an experienced player they were often really good signings. The recent slate of experienced players are step down and guys like Gervinho are already on the bench.
We signed the players we needed to scrape 4th and get the CL cash. Everything has gone according to plan I would say. Some great profits from selling our star players to rivals and some mediocre players in to stop everything completely collapsing. Downside is if we ever get a management team that wants to compete on the field it'll take either a sugar war criminal or a decade of honest effort to turn our rep as an owned bitch around.
@png
i hate comparing recent transfers to ones a few years back. cazorla, giroud and podolski arguably had to settle into the worst arsenal team under wenger's reign while players like ade, hleb, eduardo, rosicky had the luxury of growing into a free flowing, dynamic arsenal team that were pretty effective at the time. and we had a conveyor belt of talent coming through to make the transition process easier, going out and thrashing teams 6-0 in the carling cup every month. they came into the team when we were on an upwards curve and looked like we were going places.
the current lot know they are coming into a completely depleted squad. the core of the squad is much worse, they have less quality players around them, and as you say, we dont even play scintillating football anymore. its all been completely eroded. we dont go out with the mentality of 'score as many goals as possible'. now the mentality is 'win at all costs'. hence why when we score we're pretty decent at shutting up shop to see the games out tbf. not many 4-0's but more of the 1-0's nowadays.
its much harder to score and look good in this team than in the previous teams. different era and brand of football. put cazorla or even giroud in the 07-08 team and they might double their figures (if ade got 30 in a season giroud could have got 100).
the wages bit of your last paragraph is a good point.
I don't want to knit pick over certain players but to sign 13 players in two seasons and we have one or two genuine classy players to show for it is pretty shoddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by She Wore A Yellow Ribbon
yep, Arsene has done his few share of panic buying over the past few seasons, not so much last season but the season before was an absolute disaster, he gutted the team midway through the summer, sat on hands for months and then went shopping in the "bargain bin" on the last day of the window.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
arsene has bought some truly awful players over the past few years and what makes it worse is these players are supposed to be relatively experienced.
ThisQuote:
Originally Posted by selassie
Santos, Arteta, Squillaci, Benayoun were shocking. Thankfully Benayoun was just on loan. Still stuck with the other 3 and all are "experienced"
It's a worry and not just the panic buys that are questionable. We were scouting Chamakh for ages. Gervinho was a target and we moved for him early. After one season he's on the bench. Podolski was a target but I'd never imagine we'd play him on the wing. I thought he was a replacement for RVP. The stats are good on his part but I'm not sure he'll be starting for us next season. Too anonymous on the wings, struggles to defend and just isn't an out and out winger. Why he'd move for someone that's not a good dribbler is a mystery especially when Gervinho was so good at it but his end product is poor. They're complete opposites in that sense. If he ends up benching Pod, playing Cazorla on the left instead then you really have to wonder what's going on in his mind. Maybe it's the pressure for results and he's not weighing players up as much as he used to.Quote:
Originally Posted by selassie
Usual BS
PSG already have an agreement with Arsene Wenger to become the new manager in 2014 (Sky Italy)
Please let that be true